


the sparkle

by rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: M/M, basically this is an extended version of s7 ep 14 'pretty young thing', bc shonda...u coward...U SHOULDA LET THEM FUCK!, in which i expound upon the STRONG tension between avery & sloan, some plot and some porn in equal measure, specifically minute 10 second 5 of ep14, this is 16k words of a rarepair in honor of sloan and avery's stellar abs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:49:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars/pseuds/rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars
Summary: “Avery,” Sloan says, looking a little dizzy. Jackson raises an eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me?”Jackson waits a second and drawls out, “Do you think that I am?”“Yes,” Sloan says. “I really do.”“Hmm,” Jackson says. “What are you gonna do about it, then?”“This,” Sloan says, and pushes him back up against the closet door and kisses the fuck out of him.or the one where sloan does something about the fact that jackson's face that is "better than a hundred billboards". (who needs a face that launched a thousand ships when you can have one that's better than a hundred billboads? marlowe couldn't have said it better himself.)





	the sparkle

**Author's Note:**

> i have no explanation other than that i have been idly writing this on and off since dec 2016 when i first watched this episode in season 7...and i thought surely sloan and avery will be the service top/power bottom representation we deserve...and then they weren't...so i thought "nothing and no one can stop me from doing it myself" and now here we are, nearly an entire year later, because i got sick of it sitting in my drafts and finished it off! this fic, like everything i write, is dedicated to val, who accepts me for who i am--and who i am is a disaster bisexual who thinks with her horny heart and not at all with her one existing brain cell. val, i love you! i haven't watched grey's since s10 so keep ur spoilers out of my comments love yall xoxo go have fun meet u in the comments at the bottom!

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Jackson says.

“Oh, poor Mr. Green Eyes,” Sloan says, crossing his arms. “Let’s not pretend being beautiful is a burden, Avery. God, especially not in plastics. Those cheekbones? Better than a hundred billboards.”

Mark fucking Sloan is one to talk about being beautiful, what with his Crest toothpaste commercial smile and his frustratingly brilliant blue eyes. Fuck this guy.

“I just want you to know that I am  _ deeply  _ uncomfortable right now,” Jackson says, crossing his arms. “ _ Deeply _ .”

“Yeah, don't really care,” Sloan says. “Mrs. Johnson's nose isn't going to fix itself. I’ll let you take point if you do this  _ little  _ thing for me. Just go talk to Lexie and see what's wrong.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” Jackson says.

“Avery,” Sloan says. He gets in Jackson's fucking personal space, with his elbow propped up against the wall over Jackson's head, offering him a  _ I know I'm gonna get my way _ sort of smirk. “How about a little sparkle?”

Jackson reluctantly brightens his eyes and plasters on what he hopes is a convincing smile. Sloan reaches out and taps the tip of Jackson's nose.

“ _ There _ it is!” Sloan says delightedly.

Jackson manages only a quick nod of acknowledgment. Apparently unfazed, Sloan gives  _ him _ the sparkle and vanishes around the corner. Jackson grumbles to himself as he shoves his way out of the scrub room and out into the halls, already looking for Lexie's long brown hair. 

-o-

_ Goddamn _ , he thinks. If he were Lexie, he'd be upset, too. On top of everything else going on in her life, apparently her new stepmother is the same age as her. Not to mention the fact that Sloan dumped her--or didn’t dump her? It was a long story. Jackson couldn’t really keep track of it, but God fucking damn. Jackson can see why Sloan was so concerned. Except--well, except. All that stuff is kind of personal. And if she's not Sloan’s girlfriend anymore, it's not really Sloan's business.

It’s not Jackson's business either, really. Except Lexie had told him freely and willingly (if you don't count the influence of the chocolate), and all of it was really sad and stressful, and none of it seemed like it should be revealed to Sloan, who would probably blunder around and just make everything worse.

Except--and fuck, there’s a hell of a lot of exceptions--Jackson wants that surgery. He  _ really  _ wants that fucking surgery. But the problem was that Lexie had looked at him with her big, soft eyes and told him unflinchingly about her shitty life without holding a single thing back, and had consequently thanked him for being a decent friend. She had been vulnerable and innocent and had no reason to suspect that Jackson would betray her confidence. 

Fuck it. Fuck the surgery.

Moving slow as molasses, he scrubs his hands clean and grabs a mask. He squares his shoulders and marches into the OR. Sloan is standing over a patient, hands moving deftly and without pause, and he is absolutely not paying attention to Jackson, his face wiped clean of any expression.

Jackson clears his throat. Sloan looks up, sees him, and he fucking--well, he fucking  _ sparkles. _

“There he is! What do you have for me, Avery?”

Jackson feigns a grimace and says, “Nothing.”

Sloan's face falls into a perfectly crafted moue that makes him look sad and pissed off and devastatingly handsome all at once. Jackson resists the urge to seize a scalpel and rend the skin of his own chest with it.

“Really?”

“Yeah, man. It was a total bust. She just ate the chocolate and left,” Jackson says, feeling a tiny rush of guilt from the lie, desperately trying to look like he would any other time he was missing out on a surgery.

“Damn. Well, you tried. Come on, scrub in. This osteotomy isn’t gonna wait forever, no matter how sparkly that face might be,” Sloan replies nonchalantly.

Jackson almost bites through his lip. “Sorry, what?”

“Surgery,” Sloan says slowly. “You. Me. Now. Scrub in. Unless…”

“But I didn’t--”

“Come on, Avery. I’m a douche. I’m not an  _ awful  _ douche,” Sloan says, looking offended. “First and foremost, I am a teacher. Please scrub in on my surgery and watch my hands do God’s work.”

“Uh,” Jackson says. He doesn’t mention that he’s pretty sure awful _ is _ included in the douche title. He also does not mention that Sloan has never, and likely will never be, a teacher first and foremost. Sloan is many things--really hot, a bit of an ass, very arrogant--but not much of a teacher. However, Jackson has been advised many times not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so...he’s not looking. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Jackson scrubs in and kicks plastic ass and resolutely does not sparkle at Sloan afterwards. He sees Lexie in the residents’ room after work while he’s changing and invites her, straight faced and shirtless, out for a drink. He’s not sure if he should be offended that she doesn’t even glance at his abs, just turns him down wearily and trudges out. Jackson shrugs and turns back to his locker to rummage around in his bag for some water and his plain clothes.

“Avery,” Sloan says. 

Jackson yelps and throws his water bottle at the wall. 

Sloan gives him an amused look.

“Jesus,” Jackson says. 

“It’s Mark,” Sloan says, and offers Jackson an insouciant smirk along with the very cliched line. “People get us mixed up a lot. I think I just have one of those faces, you know--”

“Be quiet. Please. Christ. You scared the fuck out of me. What do you want?”

“Now, Avery,” Sloan says, still looking very amused. “Is that  _ really _ how you want to speak to your attending?”

“No, sir,” Jackson says hastily. “No. Sorry. Um. Is there something that I could help you with?”

“I just wanted to let you know that you did good work today, Avery. You might have a future in plastics after all,” Sloan continues. He’s still in the doorway, leaning against the wall, but Jackson feels like he’s just a few inches away, what with the earnest pressure of Sloan’s eyes burning into his.

“Thank you, sir,” Jackson says. “It was an honor to get to work alongside you. And I’m sorry, you know. About the thing.”

He is _not_ sorry about not betraying Lexie’s trust, but, you know. He’s got to get to the top somehow, and if lying about _everything_ to all the people he cares about is the way to go, he’ll do it.

“It’s alright,” Sloan waves him off. “You tried. A pretty face will only get you so far.”

Jackson’s face burns. He digs his nails into his palm and says, “It gets me far enough.”

“I bet it does,” Sloan replies, flashing Jackson a  _ very  _ distracting smile. “Alright. I’m off. I want you on my service tomorrow. You got time for me in your busy schedule?”

“I--”

“Make time,” Sloan interrupts. “It’ll be worth your while. Goodnight, Avery.”

He fucking  _ winks  _ and walks out, the clicking of his shoes on the linoleum eventually fading into punishing silence. Jackson yanks his shirt over his head and tries not to have an asthma attack while he finishes packing up.

On his way out of Seattle Grace, he notices Sloan standing by the door, deep in conversation with Shepherd. Sloan spots Jackson over Shepherd’s shoulder, and he--oh,  _ fuck _ \--flashes Jackson a huge smile, his eyes  _ glowing  _ in Jackson’s general direction. Jackson’s mouth drops open and he almost gets trapped between the automatic doors at the front of the hospital. Apparently satisfied with how he’s almost fucking killed Jackson, Sloan turns back to Shepherd. Jackson fumbles with his backpack strap and manages to extricate the sleeve of his shirt from the doors.

“Jackson!” a voice shouts, shaking him out of his reverie. He looks up. Kepner, glowing with good cheer and resilient spirit like she always is, is standing there looking at him sympathetically. “You okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah. Just...Just got distracted,” Jackson replies, glancing over her shoulder. Sloan is still there, talking to Shepherd nonchalantly like he hadn’t been trying to eyefuck Jackson five fucking seconds ago. He hastily turns his attention back to April, who looks very worn-down beneath the veneer of ebullience that she always wears. “You good?”

“Can I hitch a ride with you?” she asks, instead of answering his question. He doesn’t say anything; he’s too busy looking over her shoulder. Sloan bends his head to get closer to Shepherd, eyes warm with interest that’s visible even from a considerable distance. Jackson wants to choke himself to death, just a little.  “Jackson?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jackson says, instead of saying that he’s thinking about jamming lap pads down his throat until he can no longer breathe.

April grabs him by the elbow and starts towing him towards the parking lot, jabbering the whole way. Jackson can’t catch the thread of her monologue for more than one reason, the first of which being that she’s talking incredibly fast and saying something about Stark, and the second reason having more to do with one Mark Sloan. 

April chatters at him the whole way home and Jackson doesn’t hear a word, not one fucking word, because he’s still thinking about whatever Sloan is going to have him do tomorrow.  _ Worth his fucking while.  _ He thinks about it on the walk from the car, during dinner with Lexie and April (three respective servings of Ramen and multiple beers), even while he showers, staring blankly at the opposite wall of the shower, replaying the conversation in his head.

He checks his phone when he gets out of the shower, not sure what he’s looking for, just-- _ something _ . There’s nothing. It’s fucking stupid of him, he knows it, and he dries off and puts shaving cream on in the mirror too harshly, self flagellation smeared in foamy white across his jaw. April pounds on the door and demands to be let in so that she can brush her teeth.

“I’m shaving,” he snaps at her. “Go brush them downstairs.”

“Meredith and Shepherd are having sex downstairs,” she says. 

Jackson sets his razor down and goes to let her in because Meredith and Shepherd having sex in an inappropriate place is a universal struggle that should not be ignored. She crowds into his space at the sink to wet her toothbrush. He runs the razor along the curve of his chin, willing her to leave, trying to ignore her until she disappears.

She stands behind him, trying to see over his shoulder into the mirror so she can make sure she’s cleaning her molars appropriately. He lowers his shoulder begrudgingly so she can see. 

April says something around an enormous mouthful of toothpaste that he absolutely cannot understand. He frowns.

“I  _ said _ ,” she says. “Move,” 

Jackson edges away from the sink so she can spit into it.

“Sorry. I was saying, what’s on your mind? You seem upset.”

“I cannot do this with you right now,” Jackson says, too curt by far even before getting out another sentence.

April’s face falls a little before she can hide it, and then she clears her throat around her toothbrush and says, “Cool, cool. That’s--it’s--”

“April,” Jackson says, squinting at her in the mirror. “Please tell me you’re not about to cry because I said  _ one  _ sentence to you.”

“It’s been a long day,” she says. She’s brushing so violently that he’s starting to worry about her gums. “I’m only human! I just--”

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day for me, too. I didn’t mean to yell at you,” Jackson acquiesces, only because her eyes are suspiciously wet. “Sloan is kicking my ass. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says. She leans around him again to spit in the sink. “I’ll be up for a little while longer if you want to talk. Goodnight, Jackson.”

“‘Night, April,” he says apologetically, electing not to mention that he can’t talk because he’s trying to have sex with his boss and he’s pretty sure that’s confidential. She puts her toothbrush away without looking at him and shuts the door behind her. Jackson wipes his chin clean of shaving cream and bitterly slaps on aftershave, absolutely not thinking about Mark Sloan’s crooked smile.

-o-

He’s in the ER when It™ happens. Not it. It™, with a capital I. Jackson’s standing over a teenage girl with a broken nose, poking and prodding a little. She’s making some noises he doesn’t like very much, so he hooks her up to some pain meds. “Does this hurt?” he asks, trying to be as gentle as possible.

“ _ Yes _ ,” she says pointedly, as if to say a very polite  _ fuck you _ to his attempted sensitivity. “Can you please check on my girlfriend? She’s making a weird face.”

“Of course,” Jackson says. He wipes a little blood off her septum. “You’re gonna be fine. Sorry, how’d this happen, again?”

“Soccer match went south,” the girl says.

He turns to look at her girlfriend, who has a decently sized laceration on her right temple. He grimaces. “Does that hurt?” Jackson asks, already digging for some gauze.

“That’s, like, the question of the hour,” says the first girl, which makes the girlfriend giggle, and then say, 

“ _ Shit _ , ow,”

“So that’s a yes,” Jackson says drily, stepping closer with the gauze to get a good look.

“I’m  _ fine _ . Can you please take care of her first?”

“Well,” Jackson says, hoping he sounds comforting. “I just need to clean you up. I’m going to page my boss to take a look at her nose, so it can set right. And then--”

“Avery, there you are! I got your page!”

That’s Sloan, full of boisterous cheer, coming in for his first shift of the day. He’s panting a little; he must’ve run all the way down after getting several panicked alerts from Jackson. Still, he looks ridiculously handsome and well-rested. Jackson’s been here since four AM. Fuck this guy. It’s too fucking early to look like that.

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “Here I fucking am,” he adds under his breath.

Broken Nose snickers.

“Oof,” Sloan says, squinting at the lac on Gash Girl’s head. Fuck, Jackson really has to find their names in their charts. “Avery, that’s gonna leave a scar if you aren’t careful with your sutures. Hi, kiddo. I’m Dr. Sloan.”

Fuck Sloan. Fucking  _ fuck  _ Sloan, that fucker. He has the audacity to  _ sparkle  _ at the girl. Jackson swallows his commentary and dabs at the scrape on Broken Nose’s forearm with an alcohol swab.

“Excuse me,” Gash Girl says, a little too quiet to be audible.

“I’m more worried about this one,” Jackson says, gesturing to Broken Nose. “ _ Someone  _ needs to be a little more careful in front of the net.”

“Shut up,” Broken Nose says, laughing, and then wincing when her nose crinkles.

“Um,” the girlfriend says. Jackson’s too busy digging through a kit for something non-absorbable.

“Course of treatment?” Sloan asks, examining the tiny nicks along Gash Girl's left cheekbone.

“Irrigate the major lac and hit it with some 6-0 prolene. Clean out smaller cuts, prescribe antibiotics because of possible contamination, and check patient for a concussion and any broken bones,” Jackson says dutifully.

Sloan looks over his shoulder. “Hmm,” he says. “Make sure you--”

“I don’t feel well,” Gash Girl says very sharply, and then she gasps a little, heaves, and basically projectile vomits all over Sloan’s neatly pressed button down.

Jackson blinks.

“Oh my God,” Sloan says. There's a chunk of  _ something _ on his shoulder. Jackson tries not to stare.

“I  _ said  _ I didn’t feel well,” Gash Girl says defensively.

“Fair warning. Very polite, too,” Jackson says, muffling a laugh. “Uh, Dr. Sloan, how about you go get changed, and I’ll call an intern to help me out.”

“If you ruin this kid's beautiful face, Avery, I’ll--” Sloan says, and Christ, Jackson has no earthly idea how he’s managing to keep the flattery ratcheted all the way up even when covered in  _ vomit _ .

“You’ll mangle me irreparably. I know the drill,” Jackson interrupts. “Please, Sloan, ditch the shirt. You smell like digested Gatorade.”

Gash Girl blushes furiously. What a fucking charmer, that Mark Sloan.

“I’m going,” Sloan says. “I’m going to send Stevenson down to keep an eye on your progress, alright?”

“Great,” Jackson mumbles, already busy poking a hole in the top of a bottle of NSS with an 18 gauge needle.

The vomit isn’t It™. Not even the wink Sloan gives him before he walks away is It™. No, what’s really It™ is when Sloan won’t stop paging him. Jackson closes up Gash Girl’s lac while Stevenson takes Broken Nose up for an X-Ray. Sloan pages him three times while he’s doing the sutures, and he has to yell for an intern to take the pager off his belt and make sure Sloan isn’t sending a 911. Finally, after having her abdomen palpated, being prescribed antibiotics in case of infection, and getting checked for a concussion or any broken bones, Gash Girl is good to go, so he wishes her well and leaves the chart with a harried looking second-year so he can go find Sloan. 

“What the hell is wrong,” Jackson says, throwing the door of the on-call room open. He freezes.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Sloan says.

“ _ Why  _ is your shirt off,” Jackson says.

“A teenager threw up on me,” Sloan says slowly. “You were there. Do I need to check  _ you _ for a concussion?”

“Right, I’m sorry,” Jackson says. He’s not going to say anything. Except. Well, fucking Christ,  _ except _ Sloan has a torso stolen straight from a Bernini statue. Fuck Bernini, actually, the man would  _ weep _ were he to see the raw human artistry that is Mark Sloan shirtless. Jackson feels winded just looking at his pectorals.

“Avery,” Sloan says. “My eyes are up here.”

“Who? What?” Jackson says hastily, tearing his eyes away from Sloan’s chest.

“Avery,” Sloan says, slower, infinitely amused. “I need you to go get my scrubs. They're in my bag in the attendings’ lounge. Can you do that for me?”

Jackson’s first thought is that he will do  _ anything  _ for Sloan, because he has a traitorous and deeply bisexual brain. “What?” he manages. “Yes? I mean, yes. I can. I’ll--I’ll just go and get the scrubs, and you can--right, uh-huh,”

Sloan crosses his arms over his chest. It makes his biceps look absolutely mouth-watering. Jackson clings to the doorway with white-knuckled fingers and hauls ass out of there.

One short elevator ride later and he’s standing outside of the attendings’ lounge. He has only the presence of mind to hope that Bailey isn’t lurking on the other side, prepared to yell at him, before he opens the door. It’s dead quiet. He glances around. Table bought from IKEA that's just a  _ tiny  _ bit lopsided, coffeemaker bubbling in the corner, fridge door slightly ajar. Most importantly, no attendings to yell at him. Sloan’s bag is sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room, expensive buttery leather with the initials  _ M.S.  _ stamped in the lower left corner. He shuts the fridge all the way, scoops up the bag, and flies for the door, fingers slipping on the knob. He breaks out into the hall and crashes straight into Shepherd. Sloan’s bag goes flying and he falls flat on his ass.

“Oh, shit,” he says. “Fuck, sorry,”

“Avery,” Shepherd says, greatly amused. He grabs Jackson’s forearm and hauls him to his feet. With his other hand, he plucks Sloan’s case from the floor. “Stealing from Sloan, now? Is he that bad?”

“What? No, God, no. A kid in the ER threw up on him, so I'm grabbing him new clothes,”

“Was it your fault?”

“No! I mean, a little. She was my patient. But it wasn’t my fault.”

“Yeah, well,” Shepherd snorts. “I get it. You’re Sloan’s gopher.”

“Always will be,” Jackson says. He grabs the bag from Shepherd and straightens the zipper on it. “Sorry, I have to--”

“Of course,” Shepherd says, his blue eyes unreadable. “Beautiful day to save lives, Avery. Go on.”

Jackson doesn’t mention that he’s not saving lives, he’s just taking Sloan some dry clothes, and salutes Shepherd. “Sir, yes, sir,” he says. Shepherd waves him off with a smile.

It’s too quiet in the elevator. It leaves Jackson with too much time to think about Sloan in the on-call room with his muscled abdomen glowing like polished marble or  _ whatthefuckever _ in the dim light. He hops off on the appropriate floor and resumes hauling ass. He knocks.

“Come in!” Sloan says.

Jackson shoves open the door. Sloan’s on the bed, flipping through a copy of  _ Cosmo _ that an intern doubtlessly abandoned in here.  

“I brought, um,” he says, and trails off lamely. God, Sloan’s  _ arms _ , and his  _ shoulders _ , holy  _ fuck _ . “Your clothes.”

“Good man,” Sloan says approvingly.

Jackson attempts not to swallow his own tongue and hands off the bag to Sloan. 

“Okay, good,” Sloan says. “Thank you. You can meet me in the skills lab after this. I don't have surgery for another few hours. I want to go over some suturing with you.”

“Okay, of course,” Jackson says hastily. “Er, if you don't mind, I'm going to go--the patient files--and--”

“Avery,” Sloan says. He gets up to his feet and delicately extricates his scrubs from his bag. “Get it together.”

“Sir,” Jackson says lamely, knowing that he will not, in fact, be able to get it together. He does the only thing appropriate in this situation: he runs out of the room as fast as he can without making it any weirder.

-o-

The next hour: they're in the skills lab, Jackson with a needle in hand, producing rows of fine sutures on the top of a raw chicken breast.

“Hey, no,” Sloan says sharply, which makes Jackson jump a little and nearly drop the needle. “Focus, Avery!”

“...Sorry?” Jackson offers, confused. The last three stitches are a little lopsided, but the rest are without fault.

“Pfft,” Sloan says. “I don’t know what you’d do without me.” He puts down the case file he’s been reading and stands up to yank on some gloves. He comes to hover over Jackson’s shoulder. “Get the needle under the--right there,” he says. “Let me show you.”

Jackson mumbles an affirmation and tries to scoot out of the way, but Sloan grabs his shoulder with one hand and steadies the needle with the other.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Sloan says pleasantly. Jackson couldn’t if he tried. “Just do what I do.”

Barely daring to breathe, Jackson tries to relax his grip on the needle and follow along with Sloan’s guidance. Sloan’s breath is warm against his ear, but he’s not touching Jackson with anything other than his hand, not even a little. Jackson takes a deep breath and whips out a few more stitches.

“Those last ten,” Sloan says, craning his neck to see. “Those are quality. Not a scar in sight on anyone if you keep those up.”

“Really?”

“Don’t fish for compliments, Jackson,” Sloan says mildly.  _ Fuck _ , his mouth is right next to Jackson’s ear, what the  _ fuck _ . His voice is absolutely unreadable as he says softly, “It's very unbecoming of an Avery.”

Jackson mutely lays another four sutures into the flesh of the chicken.

Sloan checks his watch. “A few more,” he says. “A few more, and then we’ll look at those files, hmm?”

“Sir,” Jackson repeats. He digs his needle into the chicken. Sloan, arms bare, muscles corded all along his shoulders. Sloan, smiling at him, his eyes alight. Sloan, head thrown back, laughing, jawline in sharp relief. Sloan, mouth right next to his ear, hand over his own. Jackson’s next stitch goes down crooked.

-o-

He’s changing clothes after his shift when someone sneaks up on him.

“Jackson,”

He jumps and hurls his water bottle  _ again _ . This should  _ not  _ be a regular occurrence. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, sorry, Grey.”

Grey is standing in front of him, holding his water bottle, looking confused. “Avery,” she says, eyeing him suspiciously. “Are you okay?”

“You just scared me, you fucker.”

“Okay,” Meredith says. She slaps the water bottle into his hands and crosses her arms. “Fine, then. Have a nice night.”

“Jesus,” Jackson huffs, clutching the water bottle to his chest. “It’s not like you actually care about anything I have to say anyway.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Meredith says. Jackson sputters. “I just thought you looked a little spooked. You’re a human being, Jackson. I’m allowed to care about you.”

“I  _ am  _ a little spooked,” he admits. 

“What’s up?”

He should not be talking about this with her. Lexie is her sister. Meredith is going to  _ kill  _ him. He thinks about Sloan’s smirk. Good. Meredith  _ should  _ kill him. Violently. Viciously. Evisceration, probably. It’s for the best. He is a bad person. Sloan is a bad person.  He swallows. “Can you keep a secret?”

Meredith pauses and turns, raking her eyes up and down his body, as clinical as an X-ray. She stares into his eyes like she can divine the full truth of whatever he’s withholding by sheer force of will. “I can.”

“Will you?” Jackson presses, holding her gaze. Meredith relents after a moment, apparently deeming whatever she sees in him to be acceptable.

“I will.”

“I--”

“Oh, no, we are  _ not  _ discussing the sordid details of your sordid life inside this hospital, where the walls have ears tuned for...sordidity.”

“Did you learn a new word?” Jackson says, amused.

Meredith glares at him. “Do you have a secret to spill or not?”

Jackson acquiesces with a grumble and lets her tow him out of the changing room, trying very hard not to regret his decision.

-o-

Jackson suggests that they go to Joe’s. Meredith stares at him like he’s gone crazy and demands to know if he wants every nurse in Seattle Grace to hear about his personal life. She leaves him in the parking lot so she can talk to Shepherd, and returns holding car keys. The drive home is mostly silent, Jackson preoccupied with thinking about how many specifics of this imbroglio he should explain, Meredith humming along to the music on the radio softly.

The house is dark when they get home, which makes Jackson more relieved than he should be. Meredith unlocks the door and steps inside, yelling, “Anyone home?”

“Shut up!” Karev yells from upstairs.

“Are you staying in?” Meredith calls back.

Silence. Karev comes clattering down the stairs a few moments later, looking tired and pissed off. “My kid with the short bowel is recovering. I’m supposed to go check on him in an hour,” he says. “I was  _ trying  _ to take a nap before I left.”

Meredith winces. “Sorry, sorry. Do you want anything to eat? There’s Thai in the fridge, I think? Sorry.”

“No,” he says grumpily. “I’ll grab something on my way.”

“‘Kay,” Meredith says, still looking penitent. “Good luck.”

“Luck is not necessary,” Karev says. He turns and lumbers back upstairs. Jackson still kind of hates the guy.

“C’mon,” Meredith says. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

He drops his backpack on the ground by the door and shuffles after her.

She goes for the cabinet above the fridge with no preamble and hauls out two glass bottles, one of whiskey and one of tequila--or, no, mezcal, isn't it? Must be, because there’s a worm floating at the bottom, suspended in the honeyed liquid. She turns and slams them down on the kitchen table, probably with a little too much gusto, and says, “Pick your poison, Avery!”

“You’re trying to fucking kill me,” Jackson says, considering.

Meredith shrugs and says, “You pick or I’m gonna eat the worm before you do.”

“Christ,” Jackson says, grabbing the whiskey by the neck of it and unscrewing the lid. “No one really  _ wants  _ the worm.”

“I beg to differ,” Meredith replies, accepting the other bottle when he hands it to her.

“How big of a cup do you want?”

“Tonight, we’re drinking straight from the bottle,” Meredith says confidently, stripping the foil off the mezcal.  

Jackson eyes her and then the mostly full whiskey bottle cautiously, and thinks,  _ fuck it _ . “Fine by me,” he says, and gets started by taking an incredibly generous slug of whiskey. He resolutely does not splutter, and does not think about how unwise it is to be drinking straight from the bottle at nine PM with Meredith fucking Grey, whose sister has a boyfriend who he is (kind of in the process of) stealing.

Meredith makes a noise of encouragement and mimics him, taking a careful sip. “You got a secret,” she sing-songs, refocusing on him, her eyes pinning him to the wall like a bolt of steel slamming through his chest. “Spill it.”

Jackson takes a bigger gulp of the whiskey. “I’m so not drunk enough for this.”

Meredith gives him a thoughtful look and says, “I’ll get you there.”

-o-

“No, no, so  _ then _ ,” Jackson says. “Wait, promise you won’t get mad.”

“I won’t get mad,” Meredith assures him.

“It’s about Lexie,” Jackson says. “You’re gonna be mad at me.”

“I won’t be mad!” Meredith insists.

They’re currently laying on Meredith and Shepherd’s bed, day old cartons of Thai long forgotten on Meredith’s nightstand. Jackson is  _ not _ very far into his bottle at all, which makes the fact that he's completely ready to wax philosophical about Sloan’s dick print all the more embarrassing. Meredith is far more tipsy than he is, but she  _ always  _ gets like that, so he’s not too worried.

“Yes,  _ yes _ , you will,” he says, waving the bottle. Meredith grabs his wrist to steady him, pushing the bottle upwards so it doesn’t spill on her comforter. He gets halfway through apologizing and then dissolves into sad sighs. “I just--okay, so I talked to her about, y’know, your dad’s girlfriend, and stuff, and. Her life is so sad, Meredith. I feel so bad.”

“Jackson,” Meredith says pointedly. “Maybe don’t diss my family life while I’m sitting right here.”

“Okay, fair point,” Jackson says. Meredith manages to excoriate him with only an impatient glare. “I think Mark Sloan wants to have sex with me.”

Meredith falls off the bed.

“Holy shit,” Jackson says. “Holy shit, oh my God,”

“Fine,” she ekes out, rolling onto her back to blink her liquid blue eyes up at him. Jackson extricates the bottle from her hand and props it up on her nightstand. “‘M fine! Explain. Sloan? You? Explain! My sister’s ex? Ex _ plain _ !”

“Okay, so I get back, right,” he says.

“Mm-hm,” Meredith says, cool, calculating.

“And I'm like  _ hey dude, no dice _ ,” 

“Mm-hm,”

“And then--and this is weird--he lets me scrub in on the surgery even though I didn't get what he wanted,”

“Mm _ -hm _ ,”

“So  _ then _ ,” 

“Mm-hm,”

“I’m changing. And he walks in on me. And I'm shirtless.”

“ _ Mmmm _ -hm,”

“And he gives me a once-over. Or maybe he doesn't. I don't remember. Not important. I apologize for not getting what he wants, he says it's fine, we feel awkward, whatever. And then he asks if I have space on my schedule tomorrow, right?”

“Mm-hm,”

“And before I can answer, he says I should  _ make _ space. And then he says it'll be  _ worth my while _ ! Worth my fucking while! And then he  _ winks _ !”

“Okay, what the fuck,” Meredith says. It’s hardly concrete evidence, but it’s still...well, it’s still something. “That’s… Okay, that’s not that big of a deal. But the wink is weird.”

“I’d just… I’d never considered it! And now I  _ am _ .”

“Well, stop it! One instance of a strangely flirtatious statement does not mean he wants to fuck you!” Meredith says, anger welling up in her voice instantly. Jackson was braced for it far earlier than this, honestly. “You’re not gonna--Jesus, you cannot date Sloan. Lexie is in love with Sloan.  _ Was  _ in love with Sloan? It doesn’t matter! You’re not taking my sister’s boyfriend!”

“They’re not dating right  _ now _ ,” Jackson says, defensive on reflex.

“You can go fuck yourself,”  Meredith says churlishly. “You’re not dating Sloan.”

“I would never date Sloan,” Jackson says. She looks relieved. “Because he has problems with commitment that he needs to work on first, so that he can make peace with who he is as a person.”

“You can  _ choke _ ,” Meredith says.

“Ignoring that,” Jackson says.

“I mean it,” 

“Whatever. I didn’t even get to the other parts yet!”

“Well?!”

“Okay. I don’t know. I’ve walked in on him shirtless, like, three times. And he touched my hand when I was suturing a chicken. And--”

“Suturing a chicken?”

“Practice,” Jackson says absently. “And, I don’t know. It’s not a big deal. He’s straight. He’s definitely straight. So it doesn’t matter.”

Meredith chokes down her mezcal so she doesn’t spit it on her comforter. “He’s...Jackson...No, no...No…”

“He--”

“‘s not straight,” Meredith finishes. “I mean, no. No one thinks that. I mean…  _ Really _ . Ask Derek. He’s not straight. Which is why I’m concerned.”

“But he--”

“Ah-ah,” Meredith says. “No.”

“He’s  _ not _ ?” Jackson asks, registering it fully.

“I don’t like that look, Avery,” Meredith says.

“What look? There’s no look!”

“I will kill you,” Meredith says. “I will get a scalpel, Jackson, and I will rend your flesh from clavicle to--”

“I  _ said  _ you’d be mad.”

“You shouldn’t have told me! Do you have any idea of the position you’ve just put me in?”

Her voice is shoots up in the way it always does when she’s pissed off. He’s heard it hundreds of times; it never gets any less grating. 

“You  _ said _ \--”

“It doesn’t  _ matter  _ what I said!” she says, veering a little too far into a flat-out yell for his comfort.

They both fall silent. 

Finally, Jackson says, “Do you think I’m overreacting?”

Meredith snorts. “Overreacting? No. The moment an attending so much  _ looks  _ at a resident, they end up in each other’s respective pants.”

“I know, but--”

“No,” Meredith says again. “As much as I hate to admit it, I do  _ not  _ think that you are overreacting.”

Jackson has an incredibly difficult time believing that he is not A) blowing this  _ wildly  _ out of proportion or B) making a gigantic mistake by admitting how fast he is willing to theoretically bend over for  _ his boss _ to Meredith fucking Grey. Which, like, maybe Sloan isn’t exactly his  _ boss _ , but it’s probably not a good idea to  _ fuck an attending _ , Jesus everlasting Christ.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Meredith repeats.

“We’ve covered this,” Jackson says.

“Why couldn’t you tell  _ literally  _ anyone else about this?”

“Like who?!”

“I don’t know! Cristina, April-- _ someone _ ! Lexie is my  _ sister _ .”

“Like  _ fuck  _ I’m going to tell  _ Yang  _ about my latent bisexuality.” 

“Okay, April, then!”

“I said I was sorry,” Jackson says penitently.

“I’m going to kill you!”

“You already said that!”

“I’ll say it again! I will! It will be slow, and you will suffer!”

“Meredith.”

“Shh,” Meredith says. She holds her bottle out like an olive branch. “Can we switch drinks?”

“I’ll get you some water,” Jackson says. He pushes himself off the bed, pausing until the world stops spinning. He makes it down the stairs into the kitchen with no further incident, rummages around in the cabinets until he finds a glass, fills it up with water from the tap,  and wobbles back to Meredith’s bedroom. 

She’s still laying on the ground when he returns. Jackson wiggles the bottle out from her hands and pushes on her shoulder until she sits up. He has to put his hands under her armpits like he would with a toddler just to haul her onto the bed. Once she’s situated comfortably, sitting with her posture so loose she’s crossing the border into recumbent, Jackson puts the water into her hand. She takes a sip and smacks her lips.

“This is tap water,” she says critically. Jackson nods slowly.

“...yes?”

“Brita in the fridge,” she says, passing the glass back to him.

“Oh, fuck you,” Jackson says. He downs the entirety of the tap water in two gulps and goes back to the kitchen to get her another cup. 

She accepts the next glass he brings, her refined palate apparently sated by the filtered water. He nestles into the other side of the bed and puts his head back on the pillows--Shepherd’s pillows, they smell like expensive sandalwood shampoo--and tries to think rationally even though his thoughts spin back and forth like a leaf in the wind. 

“Hey,” he says finally.

“Hmm?” Meredith mumbles.

“Are you still mad?”

“Yeah,” Meredith says. She’s quiet for a second. “Except. I don’t know. This was obviously bothering you. Glad you got it off your chest.”

“Me too,” Jackson says, relieved.

“Selfish of you,” Meredith says mildly. 

“I know,” Jackson says.

“S’okay,” Meredith says. “I get it. Derek, and--I get it.”

“Thanks,” he says, a little awkwardly, because there isn’t anything to do in this situation  _ except  _ feel awkward.

They fall into silence again. At some point, Jackson’s eyes fall shut. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

Jackson is roused by Shepherd coming in and making a noise of surprise to find his wife and his coworker sprawled out in his own bed, sitting in the silence and the dark, smelling like a distillery. He flicks the light on.

“No, no,” Meredith says very quickly, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Don’t do that.”

Shepherd turns the light off and switches the lamp on instead. Even the soft yellow glow is enough to hurt Jackson’s eyes.

“Avery,” Shepherd says. “Hello.”

“My man,” Jackson burbles at him. A disgusting word,  _ burble _ , but accurate nonetheless. Jackson’s tongue no longer functions, not after that much whiskey.

“Do I want to know what happened here?”

“Your wife got me drunk and invaded my privacy,” Jackson says.

Meredith drops her arm from her face and sticks her tongue out at him. “Snitch,” she says placidly. “Snitches get stitches, fucker.”

“So do chickens,” Jackson says, thinking of the skills lab, which makes Meredith wheeze a laugh.

Shepherd squints. “Should I even ask anything else?”

“We didn’t have sex,” Meredith clarifies, biting off a giggle to explain this.

“I didn’t think you did,” Shepherd says, huffing a laugh. “That was not even a slight concern.”

“Hey,” Jackson says. “I’m marginally attractive. I resent that implication.”

“Have you  _ seen _ Derek’s hair,” Meredith says. “It wasn't a concern.”

“...True,” Jackson says.

Shepherd snorts. “Okay, Avery, let’s get you to bed.”

Jackson thinks it’s a good idea until Shepherd gets a hand around his bicep and drags him into a sitting position. His head spins. He sags back down into the pillows and blinks up at the ceiling.

“Avery,” Shepherd says, somewhat fondly. “I just took an inoperable tumor out of a woman's frontal lobe. You cannot fall asleep in my spot. Please let me get you upright.”

“I’m gonna--oh,  _ God _ ,” Meredith says suddenly. She lurches up and sprints for the bathroom.

“Tell me you're not going to throw up, too,” Shepherd says to Avery wearily. “Because I’d like you to please not do that in my bed.”

“She had way more than me,” Jackson says. “I gotta--just--go, okay, I'll be out of your hair in a sec. Check on Meredith. She's tiny. She could've drowned in her own vomit by now.”

“Do  _ not  _ throw up,” Shepherd says. He lamely pats Jackson's arm and hustles out of the room.

It takes maybe three full minutes for Jackson to reorient himself and slip out of bed. He makes his way to the bathroom. Meredith is hunched over the toilet, dry-heaving a little. Shepherd’s crouched next to her, holding her hair back and stroking his thumb over her temple. Jackson thinks  _ she _ looks like shit until he catches sight of his own reflection in the mirror. Three AM, drunk, and exhausted do not go well together. He groans and looks away from the mirror.

“Okay,” Shepherd says, after a few more minutes of Meredith making noises like she’s dying. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“G’night, Meredith,” Jackson says, from where he's bent over the sink, trying not to retch into it.

“Night, Jackson,” Meredith gags. 

Shepherd kisses her temple and says, softly, “When’d you become such a lightweight?”

“Hate you,” Meredith says drily.

“Come to bed,” Shepherd repeats.

Jackson shuffles out of the bathroom and down the hall to his room.

-o-

It’s still dark when Jackson wakes up again. He lays still, hoping to fall back asleep, but his brain won’t shut off, already thinking about the cases he has to get back to at the hospital, about all the paperwork waiting for him. Beyond that, his head is pounding, too. 

Trying his best not to make any noise, he pads into the hallway and goes into the bathroom. He finds aspirin in the medicine cabinet and takes two dry. He bends over the sink. The cold water he splashes on his face doesn’t make a difference. Fucking whiskey.

He picks his way down the stairs. Karev is sacked out on the couch, still in his jeans and tennis shoes, drooling on a tasteful throw pillow. The TV’s playing a Jeopardy rerun on mute, lighting up Karev’s slack-jawed expression. Jackson guesses he couldn’t quite make it to bed after the CABG he’d stolen from Yang last night. He turns the TV off and steps into the kitchen. 

It’s quiet but for the sound of the wind in the trees outside. Early morning light, purple and pale gray, shines through the window and limns the outline of the sink. Shepherd’s pretentious French press is on the counter. He veers away from it and dumps some of Kepner’s fancy French vanilla grounds into the regular coffee pot instead. He cracks open the fridge; there’s sparse pickings, as per usual. He doesn’t know a proper way to thank Shepherd for ignoring his drunken stupidity,  _ and _ to thank Meredith for ignoring his potentially life ruining secret, and making them each a bowl of Fruity Pebbles probably won’t cut it. Jackson doesn’t cook, not anymore, doesn’t have the time to, but when he was younger he’d gotten pretty good at it and he thinks the culinary memories might still linger in the muscles of his hands. He takes the eggs and the shredded cheese out. There isn’t any bacon, but this will probably work. There’s a half-empty bottle of garlic powder next to the stove (left over from one of Meredith’s failed attempts to make an edible lasagna) that Jackson snatches up with commensurate glee. In the cabinet next to the fridge, there’s a nearly full bag of seven grain bread that Jackson commandeers with satisfaction. He pries the butter out of its crystal dish--antique, one of Ellis Grey’s relics that Meredith can’t bear to throw out--and drops it into the pan.

Shepherd comes stumbling into the kitchen not five minutes later, looking preternaturally alert for six AM.

“Avery,” he says, taking in Jackson balancing two different pans on the stove, toasting bread in one and scrambling eggs in the other. “You’re up.”

“Yep,” Jackson says softly, wary of everyone still asleep. He twitches his wrist; the bread in the pan flips easily, virgin white side slamming down into garlic butter. 

“Okay,” Shepherd says. “Is that breakfast?”

“Yep,” Jackson repeats. He sprinkles some more garlic powder into the eggs. “And coffee. If you’re interested.”

“Wow,” Shepherd says eventually, after he’s chugged half a cup of the cold coffee out of the French press. “No wonder Sloan’s obsessed with you.”

Jackson can’t hide the tension in his shoulders. It takes him a minute to realize that Shepherd means obsessed with him in work-related terms. He clears his throat and shrugs. “There’s fresh coffee, you know,” he says. 

“The French press makes it better,” Shepherd says petulantly.

“Purist,” Jackson taunts.

“Tasteless swine,” Shepherd replies evenly.

There's a thudding on the stairs that indicates someone coming down. Meredith appears in the doorway with her blonde hair in a slowly wilting bun. “Light,” she croaks. “Turn it off.”

Shepherd offers Jackson an apologetic look for the immediate manifestation of Meredith’s early-morning disgruntlement and extends his coffee mug to her. Meredith pauses with her mouth open and squints.

“Is Avery cooking for us,” she says. She takes the coffee, sips it, frowns, and hands it back to Shepherd. “I’m dreaming.”

“You are not,” Jackson says. He plates the toast and holds it out to Shepherd, who picks off a crisp piece of crust and eats it with no small amount of pleasure. “Eggs are done.”

“Hot breakfast,” Meredith says delightedly. “God, Avery, I might not kill you after all.”

“What?” Shepherd asks.

“Nothing!” Jackson and Meredith chorus. 

Jackson scoops eggs out of the pan onto three respective plates and they fall into silence, trying to finish everything before their pagers buzz.

“Good morning!” a voice says cheerfully. Jackson winces.

“April,” Meredith says wearily, without even turning to look at her. “Love the enthusiasm, but I’m nursing a hangover the size of the Empire State. Tone it down.”

“Lightweight,” Shepherd says affectionately.

“Am  _ not _ ,” Meredith says. She turns back to April. “Shh.”

“Right,” April says, hushed. “Coffee?”

“In the press,” Shepherd says at the same time that Jackson points to the normal coffee pot.

“Sorry,” she says, heading for the pot.

“Seriously? It tastes  _ much _ better like this,” Shepherd says. 

“Uh,” April says nervously.

“It’s better!”

“It’s  _ bitter _ ,” April sighs, defeated. “I’m sorry, but you leave it in too long, and you push the plunger too fast, so there’s  _ always _ grounds floating around in it.”

“I use a--”

“Derek,” April says, once again apologetic. “We  _ know  _ you use a conical burr grinder so--”

“So the beans will have a richer, bolder flavor profile!” Shepherd says passionately.

“Excuse me if I don’t like a fuckload of grounds in my cup!” April says, her voice shooting up an octave higher than it usually goes. It’s pretty fucking squeaky already, so Jackson doesn’t fault Shepherd for flinching back a little. “It’s not as good as you think it is!”

“You got Kepner to swear!” Jackson says. Shepherd shoots him an acidic look. April seizes a mug and marches off to fill it up. “Seriously, Shepherd, that’s an achievement.”

“You,” Shepherd says pointedly. “Shut the hell up.”

“She’s right,” Meredith interrupts, extremely smug.

“Aren’t you contractually obligated to take my side in every argument, Meredith?” Shepherd asks, angrily swilling his coffee.

“Ha,” Meredith kisses his cheek and follows April to the coffee pot. “Not when you’re wrong.”

“Can you guys stop being domestic so fucking loudly,” Karev interrupts. He’s standing in the kitchen doorway, looking like a grizzly bear who woke up several months early from hibernation. 

April wrinkles her nose delicately and steals a piece of toast. “Long night, Alex?”

“Mind your business,” Karev says sharply. “Are those eggs for everyone?”

“Choke on your Froot Loops, Karev,” Meredith replies viciously, gathering the enormous plate of eggs into her arms like it’s a fragile infant that needs to be shielded from danger. “Surgery thieves don't get protein, not in my house.”

Karev flips Meredith off and turns to the cereal cabinet. “Yang had it coming,” he snaps, rifling through the boxes of Cheerios that April keeps buying--“ _ Heart-healthy, you guys! _ ”--to get to the Froot Loops.

“Play nice, kids,” Shepherd says. “I’m going to get my bag.”

“Can you grab my jacket while you’re up there?” Meredith asks, picking at her toast.

Shepherd nods before he disappears upstairs. Jackson downs the rest of his coffee and starts in on another piece of toast in great haste, hoping to outpace his pager. 

“Avery, whose service you on today?” Karev asks. 

Jackson crams another bite of egg into his mouth. “Um,” he gets out, unwilling to say that he is fiercely protective of his spot with Sloan and he will not be giving it up to Karev, who looks like Diddy Kong if he were a human being and is too fucking rude to merit Jackson’s charity.

“You lay  _ off _ ,” Meredith snaps, glaring at Karev. “No more poaching good surgeries and good services, you twit.”

“Twit,” Karev scoffs disbelievingly.

“Twit!” Meredith confirms.

Karev looks at April as if to say,  _ you hear this shit _ ? April presses her lips together tightly and looks the other way. 

“Fine,” Karev says. He eats cereal like a starved Neanderthal tearing into the barely cooked flesh of a wooly mammoth. It makes Jackson supremely uncomfortable. “Fine, fine. I’ll just be stuck with Stark yelling at me, fine.”

April seizes the plate of eggs from Meredith, apprehends Jackson’s fork, and starts plowing through them like she’s getting paid to do so.

“April,” Jackson says.

“Don’t you agree that Karev is a twit?” Meredith interjects. April takes another bite of egg to fill up her mouth so she doesn’t say something unkind about Stark, Jackson can tell. 

“Twit’s not strong enough,” Jackson says dutifully. Meredith gives him a grin.

“Get fucked, Avery,” Karev says. He finishes the cereal and drains the multicolored milk from the bowl in a series of messy gulps. Jackson looks away.

“Twit,” Meredith repeats solemnly. “April, you’re going to choke on those.”

April has demolished a good quarter of the eggs and sets her fork down abruptly. “I’m--I’m--it’s okay. Um, did you guys see the--”

Shepherd bursts in, panting, a toothbrush clamped between his teeth, holding a bag and Meredith’s jacket in one hand and his steadily beeping pager in the other.

“I have to go. Who wants a ride?” Shepherd asks, tossing Meredith her jacket.

“Me!” Meredith crows. “Can you get my travel mug?”

“Shotgun!” April interjects.

“It’s my car,” Meredith says. “You can’t call shotgun.”

April takes a mournful sip of her coffee and pouts.

Jackson’s pager buzzes, too. He checks it, and blinks in surprise. It's Sloan, messaging him to see if he wants in on another rhinoplasty. “Does anyone know exactly how long it takes to get from here to the hospital?”

“Fifteen minutes, give or take traffic,” Meredith says.

“Fuck,” Jackson says, with feeling. “Fuck.”

“I agree,” Karev says. He dumps his bowl in the sink and rolls his shoulders. “Can I come?”

“No, you jagweed!” Meredith exclaims. “Derek, he’s a jagweed.”

“I know, sweetheart, but he’s a jagweed who can do surgery, so lay off,” Shepherd says, with the gravitas of Georg Von Trapp ameliorating disputes amongst his wayward offspring. “What’s the problem, Avery?” 

“Sloan has a nose job,” Jackson says. Shepherd winces sympathetically.

“There’s a joke in there that I’m too polite to make. Anyway--you want in?” he asks. Jackson nods furiously. He scrubs at his front teeth, considering. “Grab my bag, Avery. I’ll drive. We'll be at the hospital in nine minutes, tops. That's a promise.”

“Derek,” Meredith interrupts. “We’ve discussed this. No--”

“Keys, Meredith,” Shepherd orders. Jackson scrambles to grab Shepherd's bag off of the couch. Shepherd spits toothpaste in the sink and drops his toothbrush on a paper towel. “And someone get my coat.”

-o-

Jackson steps out of the car, slightly dizzy from all of the hairpin turns Shepherd took on the drive over. He’s still a little nauseous from the hangover, and the drive didn’t help. He checks his watch. Eight minutes. Fucking impressive.

“ _ Go _ !” April shouts, spurring him into motion.

“Avery,” Meredith says. He pauses. “Remember what we talked about last night? I will  _ kill  _ you.”

Jackson breaks into a dead sprint and reaches the hospital doors in record time.

-o-

The nose job turns out to be a consult, not an actual surgery. It’s for Broken Nose (whose real name Jackson still can’t remember) from two weeks earlier. Sloan lets Jackson handle the whole thing, all the standard spiels about procedure and recovery time. He only makes a few comments; otherwise, it seems that Jackson is up to Sloan’s standards. Afterwards, he races down to the coffee stand and gets Sloan a cappuccino.

Sloan’s standing in the middle of the third floor hallway looking forlorn and lost when Jackson dashes up. He can't parse out why until he sees Lexie fleeing in the opposite direction. Jackson hides a grimace and clears his throat.

“Oh, Avery. Good. We'll do some other post-ops, if you're finished with your coffee break,” Sloan says, with a hard edge in his tone that Jackson attributes to Lexie and tries not to take offense at.

“The coffee's for you, sir,” Jackson says. Sloan raises one perfect eyebrow at him.

“Really?”

“Yes, sir. As for post-ops, I took care of it on my way down. I have the completed chart for you to sign off on.”

Sloan blinks at him. Jackson curls his fingers around Sloan’s wrist and pulls at his arm so Sloan’s palm is up. He puts the cappuccino cup into Sloan’s outstretched hand. 

“Drink up, sir. I'll get you the chart.”

Jackson leaves Sloan in the hall looking extremely bewildered, and goes to grab the chart from the patient's room. Mission accomplished.

-o-

Afterwards, Jackson heads to lunch. Meredith spots him the moment he walks into the cafeteria and gives him an extremely serious look. He flinches, tries to hide that he flinched, and then busies himself with getting food.

Karev is in the middle of saying something highly unkind about the new peds attending when Jackson sits down.

“Hello,” Meredith says. She props her chin in her hands and looks at Jackson. “Are you doing anything cool today?”

Jackson swallows. “This morning I assisted on an rhinoplasty with an osteotomy involved, and tomorrow, I might be helping Sloan do some pro bono cleft palate surgery.”

“That would look good during boards,” Meredith says slowly.

Jackson takes a deep breath. This is very, very obviously Meredith asserting her new found influence over Jackson’s personal life, and he’s just going to have to take it. Maybe it won’t be too bad, because Meredith is rarely truly vindictive. Maybe. Meredith flicks her eyes over to Lexie, who is morosely sipping lemon water, and back to Jackson again. “...Would you like to swap?” Jackson asks.

“That’s very nice of you to offer,” Meredith says. “I’m okay, though.”

Jackson kind of hates her.

“I wouldn’t mind swapping,” Karev says.

“Nobody cares,” Jackson replies mildly.

Yang crashes into a chair at the end of the table and slams her tray down. “I am a cardio god. Also, did I hear someone saying that nobody cares about Karev? Because that turns me on a little, honestly. Anyway, did I mention that I am a  _ god _ ?”

“Ha fucking ha,” Karev says. “Pride goeth before the fall, Yang.”

“Is it being prideful if it’s just the truth?” Cristina says, frowning.

“Yes,” Meredith says, rolling her eyes.

“Meredith,” Cristina says. “Your entire job description as my person is taking my side. Take my fucking side.”

“Okay, you  _ are  _ a cardio god,” Meredith says. “But that’s not news.”

“Avery, back me up,” Karev pleads.

Jackson takes a hearty mouthful of his fries and looks the other way. Meredith reaches over and tugs his tray away from him.

“ _ Anyway _ ,” Meredith says, pushing the fries at Lexie. “You should eat.”

“Those are Jackson’s fries,” Lexie says. 

“Jackson doesn’t care,” Meredith says, looking up. “Do you, Jackson?”

“‘Course not,” Jackson says obediently. He does kind of care, but this is his life now: Meredith Grey’s indentured servant.

“Fine,” Lexie says. 

“Is this about Sloan?” Cristina asks. “Because you can do better than Sloan. He looks like a Sims animation of a porn star from Iowa.”

“ _ No _ , it’s not about Mark,” Lexie says, tearing into a ketchup packet. “My dad’s girlfriend has a tattoo of a naked woman on her arm. And she’s a  _ teenager _ .”

“Okay, I saw her in the hall, and she looks, like, twenty-six. So not a teenager,” Cristina says.

“ _ I’m  _ twenty-six,” Lexie says flatly.

Yang grimaces. She looks the most apologetic Jackson’s ever seen her. “Okay, so it’s not ideal.”

“No, it’s not,” Lexie huffs. “And there’s kidney stones to complicate the matter.”

“The girlfriend has kidney stones?”

“No, my  _ dad _ has them. Keep up, Cristina.”

“At least he’s suffering?” Cristina offers helpfully.

“I don’t  _ want  _ him to suffer!” Lexie snaps.

“Well,” Meredith says, drawing it out so it has four syllables. “Personally, I wouldn’t go that far.”

Lexie huffs even louder. “I mean, he’s my dad. I love him. I’m not supposed to want him to suffer!”

“Again, I wouldn’t go that far,” Meredith says. “He’s my dad, too. Well. I mean. We share DNA, let’s put it like that. But I feel like the excruciating pain he might potentially be enduring is more of  _ his  _ personal problem. I’m not that concerned.”

“Meredith!” Lexie yelps, looking stricken.

“Oh, sue me. I don’t like to see  _ you _ upset. Thatcher? I could go either way on him, if we’re being honest with each other,” Meredith says.

“Don’t worry, Lexie, I’m sure there was some small grain of kindness deep in there somewhere,” Jackson says wearily. “I gotta go.” He steals some fries off of the tray that Lexie’s holding and stands up.

“Hey, Jackson?” Meredith asks sweetly. “Would you mind helping me with some charts when you’re done today?”

“How many,” Jackson says, voice flat, already resigned to his fate.

“Hmm, you know, maybe fifteen? Twenty, max.”

“...Fine.”

“Avery, you are  _ weak _ ,” Karev says, voice full of vindictive delight.

“Remember when I nearly throttled you to death in the hallway that one time?” Jackson says, because he’s not  _ weak _ , he’s doing  _ penance _ . “My schedule’s clear this evening if you’d like a repeat performance.”

“Piss up a rope,” Karev says coolly.

“Hang on, anyone got a pen?” Jackson says, walking backwards so he can keep yelling. “Someone put  _ ‘get my ass kicked’  _ down in Karev’s daily planner for him.”

Karev flips him off and goes back to eating his sandwich.

-o-

That evening, as Jackson finishes fixing seventeen and a half of Meredith’s charts, he contemplates the pursuit of Mark Sloan.

The problem is that Jackson cannot  _ actively  _ do, like,  _ anything _ about Sloan. Sloan, in addition to being at least ten years his elder, is also his boss. And Jackson's never read the Seattle Grace rulebook--aside from the sections April has forced him to--but he's 99% certain propositioning your boss for sex is against  _ all _ of the rules. (Not that that’s stopped anyone else.)

However, Jackson is pretty sure that doing everything aside from prostrating yourself at said boss's feet and asking to get railed is a surefire way to ensure that you do, in fact, get railed. So maybe he should just take it easy, set a trap and wait for Sloan to fall in it. Easier said than done, really, considering that Sloan interprets most of the things Jackson does as signs of the natural subservience of any good resident and not as though Jackson is an individual acting with some other sort of personal motivation.

Jackson sighs. He digs his phone out of his pocket and texts April:

_ who’s w sloan tmr _

The reply is characteristically instantaneous. April, polite to a fault, could have both hands in a patient up to her elbows and  _ still  _ find a way to answer a text on time.

**karev i think!! he got in on a cleft palate surgery b/c peds.**

_ would you recommend threatening him with physical violence or giving him twenty bucks to get him to switch? _

**ummmm not advocating wrongdoing b/c we r technically supposed to confirm w bailey/an attending before we switch BUT...**

**sloan totally raves about you all the time shepherd said so nd i think you should just bat yr vry limpid eyes @ him nd see what happens ;-)**

_ my eyes are not limpid _

**wow jackson look @ that point go! youre missing it!! oof there it goes now goodbye point it was nice to see u**

_...fine _

_ thanks for the advice _

**:-)**

He piles the charts back up and pushes his chair back. The clock above the desk in the nurse’s station informs him that it’s just past midnight, which is a relatively early night considering his normal schedule. Maybe, just maybe, he should go find someone to bat his allegedly limpid eyes at.

First, he gets coffee from the cafeteria. Then he sets off, first to the attendings’ lounge--no Sloan--and then to the changing room--no Sloan--and then to the practice lounge--no Sloan--and finally, on a niggling hunch, to the gym on the eleventh floor that hardly anyone ever goes into.

Sloan’s there, jogging on the treadmill, shirtless and dripping with sweat. Of course he is, because God hates Jackson. He’s got earbuds jammed in and he’s trucking along steadily, his chest heaving  _ just  _ enough to highlight the plane of his abs. Jackson has deep suspicions that Sloan’s body inspired the Praxitelean canon. 

Jackson clears his (suddenly dry) throat. Sloan jumps a little even though he tries to hide it and punches a button, the treadmill winding down slowly beneath his feet. He pulls an earbud out.

“Up late, Avery?” Sloan says, an amused eyebrow raised at him.

“It’s only midnight, sir,” Jackson says. “It’s still early.”

“Hmm,” Sloan says agreeably. He hops down from the treadmill and heads for the weight bench, passing by close enough that Jackson can just barely catch the scent of a deodorant probably meant to smell like something richly masculine--a punch to the jaw in a neon-lit dive bar or silk sheets with a crystal tumbler of whiskey balanced precariously on the edge of the mattress--and underneath that, the acrid cut of sweat. It would be deeply inappropriate for Jackson to swoon. Knowing this is the only thing that keeps him upright. “Spot me, why don’t you?” He’s already laying down before Jackson can agree.

“Ohh-kay,” Jackson says breathlessly. He puts the coffee on a side table and goes to stand behind Sloan.

“What did you need, then?”

Jackson watches Sloan’s biceps contract and tense under the weight of the bar with interest.

“Avery.”

“Oh,” Jackson says blearily. He’d come into this room with the intention of charming his way onto Sloan’s schedule and now that’s seeming like more of an impossibility with every passing second. “I wanted to see about your schedule tomorrow.”

“You’re not on it,” Sloan says bluntly.

“I know,” Jackson says, and looks down at Sloan, whose jaw is clenched with the effort of lifting in a very attractive manner. “But.”

“But?” Sloan says.

“You could change that,” Jackson says helpfully. “Sir.”

“Convincing.”

“Come on,” Jackson says easily. “You  _ know  _ there isn’t another resident in this hospital who works with you like I do.”

“A good point,” Sloan huffs. His arms aren’t even shaking. Jackson is deeply impressed.

“I’m very diligent, I care about what we’re doing, I just brought you a cup of coffee, I won’t get my feelings hurt when you're inevitably cruel to me, and you already know that you can trust me with the work. And,” Jackson says. “I’m not Karev.”

Sloan heaves the bar back into place and shoots Jackson a smile that should probably have a patent on it to make sure it’s not overused. “In that case,”

“In that case?” Jackson prompts hopefully.

“In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sloan says. “Bring more coffee. And say less about my inevitable cruelty.”

Jackson tosses Sloan’s towel in the general direction of his face and says, “Tomorrow it is.”

(He brings the coffee the next morning, and Sloan’s pleased smirk is hot enough to entirely outweigh the dirty look Karev shoots him in the hall when he comes out from the OR.)

-o-

Jackson is nothing if not patient, and so he sticks to his earlier plan, cliche that it is; he lays that trap he’d thought about before and waits for Sloan to fall in it, a trap made of coffee runs and completed charts and satisfied patients. He trades cases with the other residents to stay on Sloan’s service, schedules his time in the changing room down to the second so Sloan catches him shirtless, forces himself to stay one step ahead of Sloan by filling out charts and doing pre ops and doing everything short of tying Sloan’s damn scrub cap for him.

He counts the days as they go by. Three weeks of plastics, three weeks of being Sloan’s personal servant. It’s exhausting, and seems to have elicited zero (0) response from Sloan whatsoever. That’s...that’s disappointing, but fine. It could mean any number of things.

He elects to ignore it (“it” being the potentially amorphous factors of Sloan’s potential sexuality) and continues on his merry, slightly obsequious way. Meredith and Derek have ordered caramel flavored coffee from Harry and David for the holidays. Jackson fills a thermos with it and leaves it in the attendings’ room with Sloan’s name on it. He goes to lunch. 

Cristina, Meredith, and April are at a table, sharing an enormous tray of fries. Jackson gets a sandwich for himself and a bottle of juice for Meredith. He crashes into a chair and closes his eyes.

“You eating that?” Cristina asks, vulture that she is.

“Juice is for Meredith,” Jackson says. Meredith coos indistinctly and swipes it. “Save me half the sandwich.” He realizes with some chagrin that Yang is Jewish, although he's not sure if she sticks to the no-pork thing. He doesn't owe Yang a sandwich but he does owe her some modicum of kindness after their latest faceoff. “You still do pork, right, Yang?”

“I make exceptions,” Yang says. Apparently, this is an exception. He can hear lettuce and bacon crunching in between her teeth. “Why is Avery being nice to us?” Yang inquires. Jackson faintly hears Meredith cracking open the juice and sharing it with Yang. He keeps his eyes closed.

“Avery owes me a blood debt,” Meredith says cheerfully. “Don’t you, Jackson?”

“Mmph,” Jackson agrees.

The conversation carries on around him for a few minutes until one of the girls becomes slightly concerned with the fact that Jackson is near catatonic from exhaustion.

“Hey,” April says. “How’s plastics treating you?”

“I treat him very well,” 

Jackson freezes. He knows that voice.

He cracks one eye open. Sloan is standing above him, wearing an unreadable expression.

“Speak of the Devil,” Cristina says, dry as the Sahara. April elbows her.

“And here I am,” Sloan says lazily, his eyes fixed on Jackson alone.

“Sir,” Jackson says thinly, his pulse like a hummingbird in his throat. Sloan offers him half of a smirk.

“Avery,” Sloan says. “Can I see you for a minute?”

Jackson doesn’t have the willpower to protest, not when Sloan is aiming the full force of those eyes at him. April--or maybe Meredith--makes a muffled noise of horror. Jackson, like a puppet on strings, rises from his seat and follows behind Sloan.

(On the way, he thinks about how dangerous it was to get comfortable, to think that Sloan didn’t notice his scheming. Thinks about how deadly Sloan is when he doesn’t mean to be, like when he ducked out of a meeting with a cleft palate kid and came back once everyone was gone but Jackson, holding a 3 Musketeers and grinning when the little girl’s eyes went wide as saucers, or when he’d heard one of the interns make a vile comment about a patient and Jackson had seen that very same intern leaving Seattle Grace the next afternoon with a duffle bag and terrified eyes. Sloan could be cruel to him or he could be kind; the danger lies solely in how utterly unpredictable he is.) 

Sloan doesn’t have an office that Jackson knows of, but he does, evidently, have access to a broom closet on the fifth floor in a mostly empty hallway. He opens the door, pushes Jackson inside of it, and corners him. Jackson tries to take a deep breath and clear his head.

“Avery,” Sloan says. “Are you...There was a thermos on the table this morning.”

“Was there?” Jackson says, not innocent exactly, but not claiming responsibility.

“Yes,” Sloan says. “I’m assuming you brought it.”

“If I did,” Jackson says. “Why would that bother you?”

“Avery,” Sloan says, looking a little dizzy. Jackson raises an eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me?”

Jackson doesn’t say anything for a moment. He knows this could go one of two ways (because it’s almost always a gruesome black-and-white duality with Sloan). Sloan could never speak to him again, or Sloan could fuck him and be  _ really  _ weird about it afterwards. Jackson doesn’t really like either of those options. He’s almost positive that Sloan can’t get him fired for this, though, because he hasn’t done anything inappropriate besides a  _ ridiculous  _ amount of metaphorical ass kissing. He doesn’t feel like dancing around this, and if Sloan really doesn’t get what he’s been doing this whole time--that is, semi-actively pursuing him--then he really doesn’t want anything to do with Sloan.

Against his better judgment, however, Jackson does not offer a flat no. He doesn’t say no because there's a third way: Sloan could want him, like really want him, and this could actually go well. He licks his lips very slowly and then says, “Am I?”

Sloan swallows. “Are you?”

Jackson almost says  _ am I _ again just to get them caught up in a childish back-and-forth. He lets his eyes fall half shut, aims a loaded look up at Sloan through his eyelashes. Sloan bites his lip.  _ Ha _ . He’s too easy. Jackson waits a second and drawls out, “Do you think that I am?”

“Yes,” Sloan says. “I really do.”

“Hmm,” Jackson says. “What are you gonna do about it, then?”

“This,” Sloan says, and pushes him back up against the closet door and kisses the fuck out of him. 

That, Jackson did not expect. He makes a soft noise against Sloan’s mouth. Sloan is, predictably, a good kisser, knows to use tongue sparingly and when to nip at his partner’s lower lip. On the receiving end of these great skills, Jackson thinks he’s about one step away from melting onto the floor. Sloan pulls back a little--enough to separate their lips, but his forehead is still pressed against Jackson’s--and says, “Is this--you wanted--is this okay?”

Jackson nods so fast their noses bump together.

They don't do anything but kiss, not really, but it's _ more _ than enough. At some point, Sloan gets his knee in between Jackson’s legs and Jackson makes some truly embarrassing noises while grinding down into his thigh. Jackson can't keep track of time passing but Sloan's pager beeps at some point and shakes them out of the daze. 

“I gotta--sorry, sorry, I have to do a consult. Avery, can I, can I see you again? Could we do  _ this  _ again?” Sloan says. His lips are pink and a little wet with spit. Just looking at him makes Jackson's head spin.

Jackson looks at him like he's considering it, like this is something he really needs to weigh for more than a fraction of a second, and Sloan darts in again. He kind of hauls Jackson up, keeps him pushed against the wall, puts his mouth on Jackson's neck beneath his ear and bites at his pulse point. Jackson whimpers--it’s not even a moan, there's no use dignifying it, he really  _ whimpers _ . 

“Please say yes, come on, Avery,” Sloan says softly. “We didn’t even do anything this time,” And, well, fuck, if this is Sloan’s definition of not doing anything, Jackson is almost scared to see what he’s like during sex. “Give me a bed and half an hour, I'll make it good for you.”

That is  _ not _ the most romantic proposal Jackson's ever heard in his life. However. Him. Sloan. A horizontal surface. More than ten minutes of uninterrupted time  _ underneath  _ Sloan. Very appealing.

“Oh, God,” Jackson manages to say. “I... Yeah. Yes. Let's--yeah.”

“Good,” Sloan says, with all the self assurance of a man who is fully aware that he basically talked Jackson out of his pants and into his bed with, like, fifteen words. (Jackson is dimly aware that he should be embarrassed by how easy he is, and yet, he can’t find a scrap of shame--or dignity--anywhere.) “Very good. I gotta go.” Sloan fetches him one last kiss, commanding and lustful, and then he backs away from Jackson. “How do I look?”

“Like you almost made a resident jizz in his pants in a broom closet,” Jackson says truthfully. Sloan goddamn sparkles at him at that, all brilliant eyes and white teeth.

“Even better,” Sloan says. “I’ll be in touch. Oh, and, Avery?”

“Dr. Sloan,” Jackson says. He doesn't miss how Sloan inhales sharply at that.

“Don’t think this means that you can slack on my charts.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Jackson says obediently. Sloan winks at him and closes the closet door behind him.

Jackson is so fucked.

-o-

He doesn't say anything to Meredith about it, even if Meredith is conceivably the only person he can discuss this with without fear of being outed in more ways than one. Everyone can probably tell he was up to  _ something _ , but he tries to control the mild pep in his step and gives himself five minutes in the bathroom to press a cold, wet paper towel to his face and take some deep breaths. He bribes April with Twizzlers to fill out some paperwork for him so he can leave Sloan's afternoon cappuccino on the table in the attendings’ break room. 

On his way downstairs, he crashes into Lexie, who is red around the eyes and a little sniffly. He's fairly certain it's got more to do with Thatcher than with seasonal allergies, but he doesn't want to pry, so he hustles her around a corner and gives her a crumpled tissue from his pocket to dab at her eyes. She doesn't say anything, but Jackson can tell she's grateful. However, since people who dry hump their friend's ex in a closet don't get to accept gratitude, he makes her wait while he grabs her a pack of Reese's from the vending machine. After he plies her with some more Kleenex, he sends her on her way. He's becoming a problem solver, he thinks, and not a bad one at that.

He doesn't see Sloan for the rest of the day. Shepherd gives him a weird look in the lobby when Jackson's on his way to talk to a patient's sister and Jackson swears to God that he will exact elaborate vengeance on Sloan if he told Shepherd about...the Thing. If Jackson only gets to confide in Grey, Sloan does not have best friend tattling privileges.

He doesn't finish up until three AM and he's so bleary eyed that Bailey takes note and offers to walk him down to his car. He could crash in the on call room, probably should, but he wants a shower at home, and he wants a hot meal when he wakes up, even if he has to swing by IHOP before work. Meredith is a shit cook, but Jackson's caught Shepherd scrambling eggs for her before. Maybe he can be pressured into doing it once for poor, sad Jackson Avery who has been diligently working non-stop to save lives.

He gets Bailey off his back despite her disapproving looks and wobbles out to the car. The air is cold and wickedly dry. It bites at him, dragging the heat from the hospital out of him. He fumbles with keys and heaves himself into the driver's seat. Fuck the cold. Two or so weeks to Christmas, he thinks. That's fine, that's good, he can have a trip to the beach on his family's dime and he can spend all of that time not thinking about different ways to suck up to the attendings and compete with the other residents and still learn things all at the same time. He starts the engine and tunes the radio to Christmas carols on the way home.

The lights are on in Meredith's house, which is disappointing because Jackson wanted silence and peace. He pushes the front door open tentatively. There's the muted noises of people chatting in the kitchen but none of the clanking or laughter that traditionally accompanies anybody having sex in an inappropriate place--small mercies--so he shuts the door behind him. He hangs his coat up, stamping his feet noisily on the rug. He needs a shower. However, he does not  _ want _ a shower. He _ wants _ a deep dish pizza and maybe an Old Fashioned on the rocks. The Grey-Shepherd household is in short supply of both of those things, so he hauls himself up to the bathroom. 

The bathroom is blessedly empty. He strips off his clothes and clambers into the shower. It's easy to lose himself in the hot water, to give himself over to thoughts of the broom closet and Sloan's mouth hot under his ear. 

Or at least it is until Karev starts hammering down the door.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Karev says.

“Fuck you!” Jackson says cheerfully.

“Meredith!” Karev yells.

“Meredith, the children are yelling,” Shepherd says, voice faint through the bathroom door.

“Do you call us the children behind our backs?” Karev says, sounding terribly offended.

“You act like it,” Shepherd says pleasantly. “Avery, stop hogging the shower. Karev, no one cares. Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“See! You  _ are  _ hogging,” Karev says triumphantly.

“Remember when I threw you straight through that coffee table at Yang’s house,” Jackson says warmly. “I think on that memory very fondly, very often.”

“ _ Avery _ ,” Karev says furiously.

He scrambles out of the shower, towelling off with haste so he can get back to his room and lay down for the first time in, like, seventeen fucking hours. He wraps the towel around his waist and swings the door open. Karev elbows past him and turns the shower on again. Jackson ignores him in favor of stumbling down the hall to his bedroom. He crashes heavily onto his mattress and drifts off so quickly that he doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

-o-

His alarm beeps at seven AM. Still in the liminal stages between desperate hibernation and panic induced alertness, he rolls over to catch another fifteen. He wakes up again to April shoving him off his bed.

“Jesus, what the fuck?”

“Jackson, we have to leave right now,” April says firmly. “Hunt’s paging. There was a bus accident. The ER is about to get  _ flooded  _ with crash victims, and it’s all hands on deck. Get the fuck up and let’s  _ go _ .”

“Fuck, okay, okay,” Jackson says. “I’m only coming because it’s apparently important enough that you actually  _ swore _ ,”

“I’m going to leave without you, _ asshole _ ,” April says. “Get dressed.” She throws something at his head and leaves.

Groaning, he rolls out of bed and rummages around on the floor. A few moments later, he’s managed to struggle into relatively clean pants and a shirt. The thing April threw at his head turns out to be a package of Wild Strawberry Poptarts, which he rapidly chews his way through while trying to pack his bag.

“ _ Jackson _ !” April shouts.

Jackson tears out of his bedroom, bag slung over his shoulder, and practically falls down the stairs in his haste to get to the door. April is standing by the door, her hair a mess, her shirt buttoned unevenly and falling off one shoulder, holding two travel mugs, her backpack, and the car keys.

“I made you a cup of coffee,” April says, holding it out begrudgingly. “Let’s go.”

“Thanks,” Jackson says breathlessly, choking on Poptart crumbs.

Sloan calls on their way over. Jackson forces down his last swallow of Poptart and answers.

“Hello?”

“Avery,  _ goddammit _ , can you get your fucking ass down here? I have a-- _ shit _ \--patient with a ruptured hernia and a kid with a  _ melted  _ face that--no, Stevenson, he’ll be fine, I’m  _ exaggerating _ \--and I can’t-- _ Christ _ \--I can’t do them both at once! Where are you?”

“Sir, just relax,” Jackson says. “I’m alm--”

“Relax? You try to relax when--what the--Jesus, Avery, just  _ get over here _ .” The line goes dead.

Jackson sets his phone down.

“What’d he say?” April asks, looking over at him nervously. She looks exhausted already.

“Just floor it,” Jackson says grimly.

-o-

The ER is fucking packed. Jackson has to physically fight his way to get through the people choking up the entrance. He has to stop on his way to Sloan to help a frightened looking intern perform an emergency tracheotomy on a greying elderly woman. After that, he follows the directions on his pager up to the OR and scrubs in great haste.

“Avery, thank fucking Christ,” Sloan says. He doesn’t even look up from the teenager that he’s working on; he seems to just  _ know  _ that Jackson is standing in the OR. “I need you to help me with--just  _ come over here _ ,”

Jackson nearly trips over his own feet in his haste to get to the table.

It takes fucking eons to treat the burns and do the grafts. Jackson keeps his eyes on their patient, does what he's told. Once or twice his hand brushes Sloan’s when they're working in the same area, and he feels--something, something electrifying, intensified by adrenaline and the sheer pressure of having someone's life in his hands,  _ their  _ hands. 

And knowing Sloan needs him, knowing Sloan could have asked anyone to help him but held out for Jackson instead? That doesn't exactly diminish the satisfied glow that burns in his chest by the time they're finished.

He strips off his scrub cap and gloves in the anteroom next to Sloan, meticulously washes his hands, rolls his wrists, and stretches his shoulders. When it seems that Sloan really has nothing to say to him, he heads for the door.

“Avery,” Sloan says finally. Jackson pauses with his hand on the doorframe. “You did well,”

“Hmm?” Jackson asks, tilting his face up to look at Sloan.

Sloan rolls his eyes. “Remember what I told you about fishing for compliments, Avery?”

“Sir,” Jackson says, a laugh barely contained in his voice.

He’s going to say something--he’s not sure what, but  _ something _ \--when Meredith comes crashing in.

“Jackson, I need you,” she says. She grabs his wrist and yanks him out the door. “Come on!”

“Uh,” Jackson says, tossing one last look back at Sloan.

“Go on,” Sloan says, a smile on the corners of his mouth.

After that, Jackson forgets about Sloan, lost in the overflow of trauma patients.

-o-

Finally, hours later, Jackson is done. He’s stabilized almost all of his patients, aside from a diabetic woman with extensive burns, but Stevenson from plastics took over there, which means Jackson is blessedly free.

He calls Sloan, buzzing on post-trauma adrenaline.

“Avery,” Sloan answers, business-like with an edge of concern. “You good?”

“Closet,” Jackson says, brooking no argument. “Meet me.”

He hangs up and takes the elevator to the fifth, scurries off and shuts himself inside. There's two quick knocks on the door, and then Sloan slips inside.

“Hey,” Jackson says awkwardly. He has no clue what to call Sloan-- _ dude _ is weird, calling him by his last name as usual sounds impersonal, and any pet names would be weird too. He settles for another breathless  _ hey. _

If Sloan notices how weird Jackson is being, he doesn't mention it, probably because he can see the hungry look in Jackson's eyes.

“Hello,” Sloan says, stepping into Jackson's space, looking mouthwateringly good, even at two in the morning. “You rang?”

“I want you,” Jackson says, grabbing ineffectually at Sloan's scrubs with shaking hands. “I don't have half an hour or a bed, I have this, and I want you  _ right now _ ,”

Jackson is ninety percent certain he can see Sloan's pupils dilate a little bit.

“You can have me,” Sloan says. “Any which way you want.”

“Thank fuck,” Jackson says. He kisses Sloan, who grabs at his hips and delicately spins him so he’s pressed up against the wall. Sloan dips his head and noses down the line of Jackson’s cheek, dipping his head further and licking over the spot where his jaw meets his neck. Jackson makes a truly embarrassing noise and manages to say, “I want to suck you off, can I?”

“God,  _ yes _ ,” Sloan says, marvelling at him. “Except. I was hoping I could...Can I suck  _ you _ off?”

Jackson blinks. “Is that even a question,” 

“Yes,” Sloan says. “Yes, it is, because I  _ really _ like the look of your mouth, and I wouldn't be opposed to having it on me if you'd rather--”

“No, no,” Jackson sputters. “That’s--you can--will you suck my dick  _ please _ ?”

Sloan smirks at him and licks his lips. “My pleasure. Or your pleasure, I suppose.” 

“God, I'm tired of you,” Jackson says.

“You are  _ not _ ,” Sloan says confidently. He turns his head and kisses under Jackson's ear. 

“Don’t you get tired?” Jackson says, which is perhaps more existential than he intended, but here they are. “Of… I don't know, just, this?”

“Does God get tired,” Sloan says rhetorically. Jackson pinches at his shoulder (there's almost nothing to pinch, since Sloan is mostly muscle and likely a little bit of marble).

“You tell me,” Jackson says. Sloan smells like hospital, and beneath that, expensive aftershave. Jackson closes his eyes.

“I don't,” Sloan replies. He sucks a mark on the thin skin of Jackson's throat, dragging a gasp out of his throat. “Get tired, that is.”

It's a lie, and they both know it. Sloan has weariness written on the lines of his cheekbones and the furrows of his forehead, has it coded in the tight twist of muscles in his back and his always aching fingers. Jackson elects to ignore it, because he knows neither of them are in a broom closet to think about feelings.

Sloan bestows a kiss on the curve of his clavicle and works his way down. Jackson has a muscle in his neck that he can feel twitching when Sloan gets his hand into his scrubs. Sternocleidomastoid, he thinks. Sloan sinks to his knees with catlike grace. He smiles up at Jackson and Jackson has to bite his lip and muffle a moan.

Sloan pauses when he peels Jackson’s pants off of his thighs and stares. He clears his throat and looks back up at Jackson. “Has anyone ever told you that you look really good in red,” Sloan says, not even a question, his voice just dripping with outright lust. Jackson glances down. It’s probably not very sexy to admit that he put these briefs on this morning only because they’re literally the last clean pair in his closet.

“You just did,” Jackson says helpfully. 

Sloan bends his head and nips at the crease of Jackson’s thigh, presumably as retaliation for Jackson’s snark. He drags his mouth up, up, up, over his briefs and onto Jackson’s hip, over to his navel. Jackson doesn't trust himself not to let out a whimper if he opens his mouth, so he bites his tongue and takes a deep breath through his nose. Sloan, very deliberately, gazes up at him through his eyelashes. Whatever he sees in Jackson’s face must be satisfying. Jackson is sure he looks suitably overwhelmed, his jaw clenched shut, his fingers twitching at his sides, his eyelids fluttering erratically.

Painstakingly, Sloan drags Jackson’s briefs down his legs.

“Do you have a condom?” Jackson interrupts. “I mean--do you want a condom? I’m clean, but. Y’know.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Avery?” Sloan asks rhetorically, smirking at him. “Of course I have a condom.”

Sloan rocks back on his heels and reaches for his coat. He digs around in his pockets, produces a shiny gold package, and passes it to Jackson. 

Jackson fumbles a little with the wrapper and gets it open. Sloan plucks it from between his fingers and puts it between his lips.

“Oh my God,” Jackson says. “There’s no way,”

Sloan leans forward and rolls the condom down Jackson’s dick with only his mouth. 

“Oh my  _ God,”  _ Jackson repeats. “You didn’t. You can’t be this good at everything.”

“I really am,” Sloan says. In this exact moment, he's _ stupidly  _ attractive, and Jackson is borderline fucking offended. “Hey, Avery,”

“Yeah, man,” Jackson says, his head still spinning.

“I’m not--I’m not pressuring you, right? You don’t feel like--”

“ _ Sloan _ ,” Jackson sputters. “Have you looked in a mirror? Nobody needs to be pressured into having sex with you.”

“That’s not what I meant, Avery,” Sloan laughs, his smile bordering on fond. “I’m your boss, but you don’t  _ have  _ to have sex with me. You know that right?”

“I  _ know  _ I don’t have to have sex with you,” Jackson says carefully, scrutinizing Sloan’s face. “But goddamn, I  _ want _ to. And technically,  _ Richard’s  _ my boss,”

Sloan laughs. “Can I suck your dick now, then, or--”

“Jesus Christ,” Jackson says. “No, yeah,  _ please _ , holy shit.”

Sloan gets his mouth around Jackson’s dick, and  _ fuck. _

 Jackson has sucked a fair amount of dick in his life, to his credit, and yet--this is kind of the best blowjob he’s ever been involved with in his entire life, giving  _ or  _ receiving. It’s a headrush, it’s dizzying, it’s thrilling. All of his sensory input narrows down to Sloan running his tongue along the underside of his dick, Sloan digging his fingers into his hips hard enough to leave sore spots and bruises, Sloan having his dick nearly all the way into the back of his throat. Jackson puts his hands in Sloan’s hair with trembling fingers. Sloan looks up at him again and blinks at him with a flutter of blonde eyelashes gone golden in the dim light of the closet’s sole fluorescent bulb, his pupils dilated and dark and deep enough to swallow Jackson whole. 

“Oh my God,” Jackson pants. He doesn’t quite yank on Sloan’s hair, but it’s a near miss. Holy shit, holy shit, holy  _ shit _ . Sloan starts bobbing his head up and down, moving up and down the length of Jackson’s dick, and Jackson has absolutely no idea how he’s going to keep a lid on the whimpers and moans rising in the back of his throat. “Sloan,  _ fuck _ ,”

Sloan pulls off of him in an instant and gives him a look. “Mark,” he says.

Jackson blinks, dazed. “What,”

“Mark,” Sloan repeats. “My name is Mark.”

“Mark,” Jackson parrots. “Mark, fuck, please don’t stop, please, please,”

April watches a lot of Nature documentaries. Sometimes, when he’s tired enough, Jackson crumples onto the couch and watches them with her. There was one that she’d watched the other day, one about lions, and Jackson remembers how the lions had drawn their lips back from their teeth only when they were ready to strike, when they were going in for the kill. He looks down. Sloan has a smile spreading across his face very slowly, too many teeth exposed and swollen pink lips twisting at the edges. Just like a lion, just like a predator, dangerous, ready to devour Jackson, and Jesus, Jackson is totally willing to be devoured.

“Again,” Sloan says, even-keeled, like he hasn’t spent the past few minutes taking Jackson apart. He puts his palm around Jackson’s spit-slick cock and rolls his thumb in a circle around the head, giving Jackson an expectant look.

“Mark,” Jackson says. Sloan grins. Jackson chokes out a gasp. “Mark, Mark, Mark, oh my God, what the fuck,”

Sloan gives him an approving look and bends his head again, opens his mouth, pulls Jackson against the wet heat of his tongue, sucks with unrelenting pressure and drags Jackson to the brink of orgasm in an instant. Sloan digs his fingers into Jackson’s hips and relaxes his throat so that the head of Jackson’s dick is right up against the back of his throat, and that fucking  _ does it _ .

Jackson’s knees shake and his eyes flutter shut, trying to process the waves of pleasure that are lapping at his neurons like the tide against sand. Sloan, he realizes dimly, keeps his mouth on his dick the whole way through, right up until Jackson croaks out a, “ _ Please _ ,”, trembling from oversensitivity. 

Jackson stands slumped against the wall for what feels like an eon, breathing erratically, fingers trembling. Sloan slides off his cock and stands up. Jackson has no idea what he’s doing because he has to keep his eyes shut, lest the picture of Sloan with his golden hair disheveled and his mouth red and kiss-bruised drive him straight into insanity. After a moment, Jackson collects himself enough to pull the condom off and dispose of it. It's kind of hard to feel sexy when you're tucking your dick back into your pants, and yet, Sloan’s eyes, glittering blue and gazing at him forcefully enough to cut through steel, are doing a ridiculously effective job of making him feel irre-fucking-sistible. 

Jackson has barely tugged his zipper up when Sloan's back on him again, shoving him against the wall and kissing at his neck.

“That was,” Jackson says breathlessly. “Really hot.”

“Avery,” Sloan says. He's busily sucking a mark on the underside of Jackson's jaw. “God,  _ Jackson _ , your pulse is so fucking fast.”

“Are you,” Jackson says, gasping out a laugh. “Checking my pulse to see if you turned me on? I just came in your mouth, like, a minute ago.”

“Please be quiet,” Sloan says, his teeth sharp against Jackson's skin.

There's nothing but silence for a long minute, comfortable quiet while Sloan kisses Jackson and Jackson jacks Sloan off as quickly as possible. Sloan is so close to coming, Jackson can feel it, can feel--

Their pagers beep. Jackson closes his eyes and thuds his head against the wall.

“Ignore it, ignore it,” Sloan says softly, kissing the corner of Jackson's mouth. 

The beeping gets louder.

“I’ll just--yeah, I'll just check it, and if it's not important--”

Jackson drops to his knees and rummages around in the muddled collection of pants and lab coats on the floor, fumbling for his pager. He checks the screen and grimaces, grabbing for his pants immediately.

“Sloan, we have to go, we have to--” Here Jackson pauses to stuff his feet into his shoes. “It’s the diabetic in 170,”

“Okay, fuck,” Sloan says. “Can you hand me my coat?”

They get dressed quickly in the dim quiet of the closet and scramble for the door.

“Avery,” Sloan says, his hand stilling on the knob. Jackson pauses and looks up.

“Yes?”

“We--I mean--you know we probably won’t--”

“I know,” Jackson says. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do this again. Although I do feel  _ really  _ bad about you having to walk around like  _ that  _ all day.”

Sloan laughs, glancing down at his crotch. He carefully moves his coat so it covers up his painfully obvious erection. “That’s--yeah, okay. This was good, though? You enjoyed it?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, and then, more emphatically, “Yeah, I did.”

Sloan laughs again and claps his hand on Jackson’s shoulder. Jackson follows him down the hall, the imprint of Sloan’s palm still burning on his arm.

-o-

That week, Lexie asks Jackson out for a drink. He moves his collar to cover up the marks from Sloan’s teeth that are still on his chest and he says yes. The smile she gives him is almost enough to make him forget Sloan completely. Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> HOPE U ENJOYED IT (AND IF U DID PLS COMMENT IT FEEDS ME) and i'm very sorry if any of it is inaccurate bc...i haven't watched this show in 2 years i just want jackson avery to be pushed against various surfaces by various characters and have orgasms in various ways. tell me if you spot mistakes and i'll fix em! also, if rarepairs and/or stupid dumb but vaguely good (well-written adjacent, as i like to call them) fics are ur fancy, i'm yr gal! the last thing i wrote was king george iii/alexander hamilton and the next thing i'm finishing is lucy kelson/george wade from the seminal and unfortunately mostly forgotten 2002 romcom two weeks notice, so...stick around if you, too, are a fan of nonsense things like myself. i am on twitter @vcikyrie and on tumblr @irltrash, and i very much like to talk about writing prompts and headcanons and anything under the sun. pls leave kudos/ur thoughts/both bc i need them to survive xoxo see you next time!


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